It’s hard not to feel a little sympathy for David Suker: He’s severely unhappy sitting around and even napping in libraries and lounges to “earn” his $94,000 salary. On the other hand, he’s free to find a real job — and the city Department of Education has every right to keep him out of the classroom.

As Susan Edelman reported in Sunday’s Post, Suker is trying for a third answer — by suing to return to teaching.

DOE actually tried to fire him, but the courts — and the United Federation of Teachers contract — prevented his termination. (He did have to pay a $7,000 fine.)

Yet DOE was still unwilling to put him back in the classroom — whether because of his newsmaking confrontations with police as an Occupy Wall Street protester, or other information not made public.

So it stuck him in the Absent Teacher Reserve, along with more than 1,300 other DOE staffers, at least 200 of them teachers who were fined or suspended for misconduct or incompetence — earning full pay and benefits but ineligible for overtime.

A few ATR-dwellers actually make it back to real work — for example, teachers who take longer than usual to find placement at new schools after their old ones close.

Yet most are simply warehoused because they can’t be fired, and no one’s willing to risk putting them in contact with kids. The system set up under the UFT contract makes it near-impossible to fire even serial gropers and other pervs.

The real outrage is that they all remain on salary, courtesy of the taxpayers.